Apple kills iCommune — 16 Jan 2003

According to a article in MacMegasite and a thread on SlashDot, Apple lawyers are falling on the author of iCommune. The latter has received a notice of breach and termination of license. :(

Subject: Notice of Breach and Termination of License Dear Mr. Speth, It has come to our attention that you are distributing a software program called iCommune that violates the terms of the Apple Computer, Inc. iTunes Device Plug-In SDK Agreement you executed. The iTunes SDK materials are licensed only for the purpose of enabling the Licensee's hardware device identified in the agreement to interoperate with iTunes. The iTunes SDK is not licensed for use in a software program for sharing of music over a network. Your distribution of this program is a violation of the license agreement and of Apple's intellectual property rights. Due to your breach of the agreement, Apple hereby gives notice of termination of your license agreement pursuant to Section 7.2 of the agreement and demands that you cease distribution of the iCommune program immediately and return the iTunes SDK materials to Apple. Please contact me as soon as you receive this notice to confirm that you are taking immediate action to cease violating the agreement, and in particular, to cease distributing your iCommune software. Sincerely, [deleted] Sr. Director, Products Law Apple Computer, Inc.

Speth's answer (posted on Forwarding):

Speth's license allows him to develop a "component system mp3 player console" plug-in. He explains that he's honouring that agreement: Now, my description of the device might be a little vague, but it does describe an application for which I use iCommune. I have a Mac G4 Cube set up as the media center of my living room. It's hooked into my stereo and television. I use iTunes and iCommune on the Cube to turn it into the mp3 player console I was envisioning when I started work on it. I use iCommune on my laptop to control that system. Unlike your typical device which is directly connected to the computer running iTunes, these systems talk over the network to each other. I think I'm in compliance with the agreement, but they don't. Hopefully we'll be able to work something out. Otherwise, I'm thinking of ways to do this without the Device Plug-in API, so the project might survive.